Monthly Archives: July 2018

Here is the final post on tips for flying with young children. I hope this makes your flight with littles easier!

If you missed Part 1, you can read it here. For the planes we travel on that have 3 seats on each side, the most that can sit in those three seats (including lap babies) are 4 people—which is due to the oxygen masks. When we split up into two rows, we’ve found it works well to sit front and back rather than across the aisle as it makes passing things back and forth easier.

The main things we make sure to have in our carry-ons are a change of clothes and snacks for kiddos. While eating/chewing can help ears, we haven’t generally had ear trouble—but we’ve found eating is a favorite activity/time filler (favorites are string cheese, dried fruit, and pretzels). Plus, of course, attitudes are always better when tummies are full. They also enjoy looking at books or playing with a few toys. As far as activities, go, we have found that we really don’t need to bring a tremendous amount of activities along and the more we can simplify what we bring, the easier it is to manage carrying it all on and off the plane.

We preemptively take kiddos to the restroom on the flight. When it’s available—we’ll cycle children through. You never know when turbulence will shut down access. We also try to be careful how much liquids the little ones drink. They love drinking out of the plastic cups with straws on the airplane and would drink massive amounts if we let them.

Getting off is a reversal of boarding, with Anna Marie and the kiddos filing off and me bringing up the rear with the car seats. When we reach the jetway, we set up our stroller, strap on the car seats, arrange our bags on the stroller and head off to pick up baggage.

Then we are ready to be off on our next adventure!

In Christ,
Christopher

“Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in thathe did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitfulseasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”Acts 14:17

We’ve been so blessed to share again at the Leavenworth County Fair for our third year in a row with face painting and balloons. Today is the last day!

God has abundantly blessed, and it’s an amazing joy to see frequent flyers coming to the booth along with many new faces. Anna and Mary work almost five hours each night (without breaks!), bringing joy to sweet children.

We’ll share more next week, but I wanted to give you a preview.

Love,
Sarah

Talk about ADORABLE!

Oh, the lines. 🙂

Smiles all around. Super cute ladybugs!

Anna with a little friend and her newest creation, a dinosaur!

The sweet moment when Mary shows them their face!

The end of line balloon. I’ll tell you more about how we do that later.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,the evidence of things not seen.”Hebrews 11:1

During the six+ weeks the girls were gone, Jesse bought his house. He was excited to show it to them, and of course, they were excited to see it! I’m going to share a mixture of pictures of the girls’ tour and Christopher and Anna Marie’s tour.

The living room is awesome, with vaulted ceilings, incredible light coming in from tall windows, and pretty flooring.

The kitchen.

In the little area before ascending stairs.

Standing in the hall looking into the bathroom.

Explaining what he’s done.

Looking at one of the bedrooms.

A grateful family for the Lord’s working in Jesse’s life!

“Prepare thy work without,and make it fit for thyself in the field;and afterwards build thine house.”Proverbs 24:27

I’m delighted to share a post from Christopher on flying tips with young children. Y’all, this family has experience, seeing as they fly with FIVE young children from Kansas City to Seattle.

Sarah asked us to share a bit about our travel to and from Washington with the kiddos. Logistics have gotten more intense over these past years, but we’re just getting to the point where the older children are able to help a bit.

We bought a double stroller at a garage sale that has been a huge blessing in the airports. We’ve found that we can put both car seats in the back seat of the stroller (double-stacked), and a bungee cord is a huge help with stabilizing the car seats. A kiddo can ride in the front seat, and we can hang a diaper bag on the handle. For those who are concerned about their image and looking good/polished while traveling: it’s not the ideal setup. 🙂 However, it makes logistics MUCH simpler for us.

Something else that greatly simplifies logistics is a baby carrier. This enables Anna Marie to carry the baby while keeping hands free to carry things and help the other kiddos. (Side note, but other families might be interested. She was given an Original Ergo before Joshua arrived, which she loved; and then received an Ergo Omni 360 after Elizabeth was born and highly recommends it as she feels like the company made some great improvements. They’re expensive, but if you have baby gift money … you can buy them at Bed Bath and Beyond using a 20% off coupon.)

When we arrive at the airport gate, we’ll gate-check the stroller. We can then roll it down the jetway, and at the bottom, we collapse it down and put it into a stroller bag. (We’ve heard that the cargo holds on planes are filthy; and by the looks of our bag, it would seem so. The link is Titus2’s Amazon affiliate link, see the Privacy Policy here.) Anna Marie heads onto the plane with the children, and I then will carry the car seats onto the plane. We like flying Southwest (and really like booking flights with reward points because the flights can be canceled/changed with no penalties) and if a flight has extra seats available, lap babies can get those seats. By bringing two car seats on the plane, if there are extra seats available the lap babies can ride in them; if not, some of the other children can ride in them. Carrying the two car seats onto the plane isn’t easy, but we stack them and it works. Not to mention the flight attendants always offer to help. Note that car seats must always be by the window so as to not block egress in the event of an emergency.

We sit near the back of the plane for a few reasons. With Southwest’s open seating, it’s easier to get seats together (although the flight attendants would coordinate getting us seats together if we needed it). Plus, it’s convenient for us being close to the restroom. It also allows us to be a bit out of the way for others.
When we get to our row(s), Anna Marie busies the children looking out a window (part of why it’s nice to be in the back so it’s not inconveniencing others while we take a few minutes to get situated) while I take a minute to wipe down the walls/seats/chair backs/little trays with a sanitizing wipe. While we don’t want to be paranoid about germs, this enables us to not worry about little ones touching everything around them (and they do!). I’ll install the car seats (it’s a good thing to be familiar with how the car seats will strap into the airline seat belt: working with the car seats can be difficult and there isn’t usually much time to get them buckled in).

If you’re interested in the Southwest credit cards, here is the link. At certain times of the year, they have better bonus points offers. 50,000 is a good bonus. Right now, one of the cards says 65k, but when you click into more details, the extra 25k is AFTER you spend $15k.

Watch for Part 2!

In Christ,
Christopher

“This is the day which the Lord hath made;we will rejoice and be glad in it.”Psalm 118:24

“For thus saith the high and lofty One
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy;
I dwell in the high and holy place,
with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

What a beautiful verse. Whose name is Holy struck me. God is Holy. Yet, He will dwell in the contrite and humble heart. Our Holy God loves humility.

Today, I’m sharing a post from Anna. I think you’ll find it extremely helpful and eye-opening. We’re often asked questions to which the answer is Google It!

People might ask:

How did you figure out how to stop that annoying Windows Update pop-up?

Where do you find fun children’s activities?

How did you figure out how to connect that printer to your computer?

How do you self-publish a book?

Where do I find the recipe for the s’mores cake?

My answer: Google.

Sometimes, when I worked on computers and got stuck, I asked Nathan, my computer instructor, for help. The first thing he said was, “Have you Googled it?” From there, I learned to go to Google for answers to various questions such as I have listed above. For example, take the recipe for the s’mores cake above. You can Google the phrase, “recipe for s’mores cake,” and you’ll get lots of results!

Google is a great tool, but please make sure to turn on Safe Search. You do this by going to Google.com, then in the very bottom right corner, it says Settings. Click that, then click Search Settings. Near the top, checkmark the box that says Turn on Safe Search.

Serving Jesus,
Anna

“To receive the instruction of wisdom,justice, and judgment, and equity.”Proverbs 1:3